February 28, 2013

Globally, students, from ages 17 to 70, are having difficulty with the required personal essay for admission to college as well as graduate and professional schools. When they contact me for coaching, I say three words: Make it personal.

The lion's share of the drafts I review are not personal. They are stuck in the data and cliches which frightened applicants assume they have to present. Those include challenging courses taken, awards, community service, passion for the institution they are applying to, and how well suited they are to be admitted. Not even sandwiched among all that is any indication of who this human being is.

Schools want to know who they're admitting for a growing number of reasons. One is to provide a reasonable amount of diversity in the program. I had a hunch and I was right that I would be admitted to Harvard Law School because I was about two decades older than the traditional applicant.

Therefore, applicants must dig within their lives and pull out what experiences make their unique. Those could be overcoming adversity such as the death of a parent at an early age, functioning despite a disability, immigrating to a strange land without language skills, and/or working full time when attending school full time. There could also be unusual professional accomplishments such as helping save the family retail business by putting it online or touring Asia with a group of mimes.

Another reason is that institutions of higher learning want a sense of the strength of the human being in order to have some assurance that person will complete the program and not hightail it in a few months.

It's bad for class morale to have someone leave. That means explaining coping with academic setbacks, disappointments, and choices that were a bad fit. One woman who was admitted to a top medical school chronicled how she failed her first semester in college, figured out what was interfering with her studies, and went on to become an honors student. Did you change majors and have to invest six more months in college?

A third reason is that admissions wants to detect some kind of fire in the belly. Passion is contagious. Drive can manifest itself not only in academics but also sports, leadership positions, and, yes, starting up a business on the side. Research shows that we human beings directly influence each other cell by cell. That field of force is called mirror neurons.

A useful way to start out the search for that authentic self is to ask about 10 people in your life to describe you. Listen, take notes. Then, as with Lego blocks, play with the pieces. What you come up with could be the first step in the educational process you are going to embrace.

Severe professional setbacks, including getting fired, are the new normal. So both speechwriters and those likely to get hit with bad news are all ears about how those caught in this trauma handle it, at least effectively.

Now we have a new model for how to navigate that trauma. Distressed company Groupon, which hadn't done too hot since its IPO, has terminated its chief executive officer Andrew Mason.

As TECH CRUNCH reports, Mason was not only candid about being cut from the team. He also took responsibility for the lack of results at Groupon. Among what Mason indicated in his exit statement, he chronicled the problems with the stock price and " ... two quarters of missing our own expectations ..." He ended his statement with, "As CEO, I am accountable."

This blog wishes Mason good luck in his search for his next opportunity.

Working class values are an unexploited marketing tool. But those who have analyzed them, then leveraged them have done quite well for themselves. That began with the game-changing television program about Archie Bunker and continues today with the music of Bruce Springstein.

As the AFL-CIO struggles to rebrand itself at a time of declining union membership, it could consider showcasing how good-for-America this ethos is. Before post-World War II affluence took hold, so many of us Baby Boomers came of age in working class neighborhoods. Despite the usual human pettiness, gossip, and envy, there was the sense of deep caring. We got through whatever, including exiting poverty, through solidarity.

Among the traditional cast of neighborhood characters were the yenta who knew everyone and got people jobs; the parish priest who straightened out the drunk fathers; mothers who fed the kids of families which we call "dysfunctional" today; and hustlers who taught us how to make a buck. At my older sister's wake in 2001 in Edison, New Jersey, those from the "old neighborhood" in downtown Jersey City, NJ wept about how that time had been the happiest in their lives. Many of those were wealthy, living in big houses in the NJ suburbs.

The AFL-CIO can position the blue collar mindset and behavior as the way to bring America back from greed and alienation. It can show that we can still build individual and collective wealth without destroying the little guy and that no one has to bowl alone. Success in America no longer has to mean a zero-sum game.

February 27, 2013

The media, greens, collaboration experts, mom bloggers, et al. can huff and puff about Marissa Mayer's ban on telecommuting. But they aren't going to blow the house down. Only she can do that if she doesn't produce the numbers for Yahoo profits and earnings.

Currently there's a combination of a honeymoon period for the new leadership and the few free throws allowed to a celebrity CEO (Chief Executive Officer). But that will pass soon enough. It always did.

Remember how the security analysts initially cut slack for J.C. Penney's Ron Johnson because he had overseen Apple's retail. I was among the minority who panned Johnson's mission to put Penney shoppers into detox, freeing them addiction to deep discounting. Ha-ha, the cure didn't work as shoppers went to Macy's. Soon enough, Johnson was accountable to the bottom line, just as Mayer will be.

If Yahoo's numbers are flat or decline, nothing Mayer says or does will get much attention any more. She will be hammered for being what she is - a Celebrity CEO. Snide I Told You Sos will be made about The Off To Work We Go Folly. And both men and women will contend Mayer set back professional women half a century.

Given the wild success of period soap "Downton Abbey," the odds are excellent that Titanic II will make money for its creator Clive Palmer.

As MARKET WATCH reports, Palmer has been building an exact replica of the original Titanic in China. It should be ready to sail by 2016. One of the brilliant public relations gimmicks is that passengers on the cruise ship will be able to wear period attire. Another is that they will have no access to post-Titanic mediums such as television and digital gadgets.

Any alert PR person sees the infinite possibilities of leveraging the plan for Titanic II as a symbol for whatever. Restoring the reputation of a fallen hero like former McKinsey head Rajat Gupta could be "along the lines of putting the Titanic back in the water and getting it right this time." PR can advise their spa clients to, like Palmer, ban all modern mediums. A real attention grabber could be no telephone, even the landline kind. Also, guests at the spa could spend their time dressed in the attire from any period which is healing to them. Some might opt for the coarse robes of the apostles who followed Jesus. Others might enjoy the opulence of Florence during the Renaissance.

Since my executive communications boutique is navigating yet another comeback since I started a prototype of it in the late 1980s, I can refer to this professional journey in terms of the optimism associated with Titanic II. For my daily mindfulness meditation I would love a micro model of Titantic II next to the candles. Palmer could make a bundle selling them.

February 26, 2013

Seasoned independent contractors who telecommute know how smart it is to be onsite often enough to become embedded in the organization's collective consciousness. So, we used to figure out ways to swing by and present a whatever, interview a team member in person instead of by phone, and participate in brainstorming.

That was then. With gas prices about four bucks a gallon and even an off-peak Metro North round trip ticket into Manhattan 30 bucks, the invitations to come onsite are fewer. Organizations just don't want to reimburse those costs.

Probably they will lose out, not just the vendors. Yahoo's chief executive officer Marissa Mayer is right on the money about working eyeball to eyeball does tend to generate innovation. People are breeders of ideas. They also have the insights about what might work and what probably won't. Alone in our home office, we are shut out from that.

However, where Mayer is off the money is positioning where people work as an either/or situation. Either you're in the office with us or you're not and you're out. She might have given this more thought and come up with ways teams, onsite and virtual, could interact more. This is at a time when many organizations are pushing even full-time employees out of the building to reduce the square footage leased. Cutting that is one fixed cost over which they are having success managing.

The economy may be improving but, in many fields, there is still a glut of talent. Since you can only hire one or a handful of the myriad professionals you interview, some of them are going to be sore when they don't receive a job offer. After all, most of us see ourselves as more capable than we might be. I am still somewhat stunned when I don't nail down an assignment I have been chasing.

Those turned down could retaliate, particularly in this era of social media when it's convenient, easy, and low-cost to bring one's grievance to the attention of the world.

One financial-information startup in Manhattan handles this possibility by having prospects sign a bulletproof NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement) right in the lobby, before they even enter the operations part of the company. The agreement specifies that what the prospects see and hear while interviewing is confidential. Disclosure of any kind to any entity, including the media, is verboten.

Initially, I assumed that the organization was attempting to protect trade secrets. However, through sources who have contacts at that enterprise I found out that they had had troubles with professionals they had turned down. Some tipped off reporters about the oddball, verging on what they perceived as abusive, interview tactics. Others tweeted about the seeming ways in which they were made to think they had the position which they didn't. Others chronicled what they perceived as sweatshop conditions.

It takes just a little of your lawyer's time to put together a comprehensive NDA for the human-resources aspects of your organization. It could save your brand a major hit.

In America, the fourth season of "Downton Abbey" will start with Mary Crawley as a single mother. That's the character development we will likely focus on. The rest of the family has sort of settled into change as necessary. Edith will become more confident and reckless. The Earl will go along with the new order. Branson will evolve into the business manager.

Mary is a wild card. The loss of her soulmate could soften her. She has had a sharp tongue and domineering personality. She could navigate to the wise woman Mama has been. Cora is the force of motherhood on the show. The family could use a wise matriarch in-training. Cora won't be around forever and she did almost die of the Spanish flu.

On the other hand, the tragedy could harden Mary into a shrew. She could make Edith's unorthodox choices an issue in the family, causing great suffering. Edith is getting stronger but she is probably not strong enough to push back against Mary. Also, Mary could continually tongue-lash the Earl for allowing the country estate to lose money over the years and champion commoner Branson. Mary knows Shrimpy lost it all. She could also become meddlesome on how little Sybil is reared, spilling her poison into the next generation.

From her high-Tweet rated speech at the Democratic National Convention to her participation in the Academy Awards, Michelle Obama has dazzled. The wattage is equal to or eventually may exceed the electric current generated by Jackie Kennedy.

Our era will have to find its version of Andy Warhol to record how this icon dominates the culture.

Will Michelle run for president? She doesn't have to. She already has all the influence and power she could ever want.

"On 'Downton Abbey' there is no profanity." That's what a neighbor observed as the group of us were watching the last episode of the season. That's when we and the Crawley family lost Matthew.

The popularity of the series, which could continue for years and years, could take the cool out of the use of profanity which started in the Counterculture in the 1960s. Before we Baby Boomers blew up formality, including in rhetoric, profanity in public discourse was taboo. It just wasn't used. Behind closed doors, that was another story. However, the story here is about public speaking.

An era of rhetorical conservatism can return to America. Instead of the "F" bomb there will be cute and tame phrases such as "Fiddlesticks," as used by the Southern belles in "Gone With The Wind." Rhett Butler stunned readers with his "damn."

Change in oral traditions is refreshing. We in executive communications might be entering an exciting period in our professional lives.